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[Ed. note--this post was written in advance of the tragic shooting that occurred on Saturday, Jan. 8 in Arizona. Our thoughts go out to those affected by those events.]

We talked a lot in the closing months of last year how 2010 was BALLS. And you know why it was balls? Because it was a year ruled by DICKS. Dickheads, dickweeds, dickwads, dicktwits, dickfaces, cheesedicks, needledicks, pencil dicks, limp dicks, and a various assortment of Dick Tracies, seemed to poke their, ahem, heads out from all sides. It was actually hard to come up with only 10 Dicks From ’10 because the year was so chock-full of cocksmokers. But somehow, after a little dicking around, we did.

And here they are, 2010′s Most Dickstinguished:

THE PALIN FAMILY

WHY THEY’RE DICKS: Everywhere we turned in 2010, there was another story about somebody named Palin being a dick. There was Todd Palin writing angry, poorly-punctuated emails. There was Willow Palin writing gay slur-slinging, poorly-punctuated Facebook comments. There was Bristol Palin being billed as a “teen activist” and dancing her way horribly to the Dancing With the Stars finals. And then there was Mama Grizzdick herself, Sarah Palin, who showed time and again that not only was she a dick, she was a Dick of All Trades–a refudiating dick, a 1st Amendment-confused dick, an Islamophobic dick, a book-shilling dick, a reality TV dick, a Tea Party dick, and, generally, an all-around fame-trolling dick of the highest magnitude. While it’s clear the Palins are gunning to be the First Family of the United States in 2012, for now, they can pat themselves on the backs for being, hands-down, the First Family of the United States of Dickbags.

OUR SOLUTION: The family of dicks that gets Dick Cancer together stays together. Another idea: JUST. GO. AWAY.

TILA: I just want to stuff my face in them and then make out with your thighs for my vlog. And then take you home to meet my parents.

MEGHAN: I, uh, okay.

TILA: And gaw, I’m like, just so glad we hooked up on Twitter! Ha… you can actually say “I hooked up with Tila Tequila… on Twitter.”

MEGHAN: Yeah… I… could?

TILA: It’s just that when I found that you like, fully looked up to me, I just sooooo wanted to like, reach out, like to a little sis or an um, like, rabid fan, or whatever. I can’t believe you’re my rabid fan! I love that!

MEGHAN: Oh girl, I love you. But I don’t know if you could call me a “rabid fan,” per se. It’s not really like that. I just think it’s cool that you–

MEGHAN: Um, Tila, I think I might just going through a rebellious stage. I hate my parents. My mom’s a robot.

TILA: Mine too!

MEGHAN: That’s awesome.

TILA: I know. So annnyways, when I realized we were going to lunch, I was like, we’re gonna dress all ladylike, right? So I’m gonna wear a little black dress and my classiest stilettos! And then I was all like, ohmigosh. Pearl necklace. I’ve gotta wear a pearl necklace!

MEGHAN: Are those… pearls?

TILA: Well, I mean, kinda! Anyway, pearl necklaces are like my favorite thing. If you know what I mean! [snorts]

MEGHAN: Yes, I think I do. Hey, not to get or technical or anything, but I think those balls on your necklace are more accurately meant to appear “pearl-like.”

TILA: [suddenly emotional] Girl, don’t hate.

MEGHAN: What??

TILA: Are you being a hater?

MEGHAN: I… I’m sorry, what?

TILA: I have suffered so much hardship in my life already. And when you’re on top [snorts], people just want to take you down. They wanna be haters! And I say, fuck the haters!

TILA: Yeah, I twitter a lot, ho! Right now I’m saying that you’re a cunty, money-grubbing, hater bitch. Should show up on your phone in a second. Oh, and now I’m saying that you take the Lord’s name in vain.

First of all, let me thank you for all of my wonderful gifts. Thank you for my luscious weave, my bodacious fake tits, and my wonderful husband. Thank you for convincing my mother to give me the space that I need, mostly ‘cuz I feel she is a stupid and dumb, fat bitch anyway.

Finally, I would like to ask for forgiveness. I would like to apologize for all of Spence’s and my staged photo-shoots, particularly the most recent one in which Spencer and I pretended to get martial arts training. Listen, I know they’re really annoying. I know we look ridiculous, but here’s the thing–I feel like we’ve basically signed our souls away to the Fuck Devil. Fuck God, at this point, unless I want to just bow out of life completely, I’ve got no choice but to keep up this douchery. So I’m sorry, so sorry, and wish that instead of pretending to fight in these last photos, Spence and I were actually, truly beating the shit out of each other, perhaps to the death, so that we could put each other out of our misery and make the world a happier, better place.

Post-election politics have begun to resemble an episode of The Hills lately, with Obama–who is obviously Lauren Conrad–reconciling with bitter rival John McCain Monday while currently vetting best frenemy Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State. McCain is this drama’s Heidi Montag, Lauren’s former friend who started out likable and sweet but wound up, over time, becoming a lying deceitful bitch. (Heidi spreading rumors about Lauren’s alleged sex tape = The McCain camp’s allegations that Obama palled around with terrorists.) We’ve got Hillary, meanwhile, pegged as Audrina Patridge, Lauren’s on-again, off-again friend whose Significant Other always seems to be stirring up trouble between them. (Monosyllabic Justin Bobby = Overly-loquacious Bill.) Will Hillary turn down the position as Secretary of State, the way that Audrina recently turned down living with Lauren and Lo (BFF/gatekeeper Lo = Rahm Emanuel) to move out on her own? Will Bill’s ties to oil sheikhs compromise the already-tenuous friendship between Hillary and Obama the way that rumors about a Justin Bobby hook-up with Lauren hurt Lauren and Audrina? Will McCain and Obama really be able to put aside their differences to tolerate being in the same room together or–dare to dream–to be friends again, even?

I’ve spent a lot of my adult life defending the state of Texas, where I’m from (as opposed to where I’m “from-from”), especially during the last eight years with W. in office. I usually begin with the refrain, “There are good people there,” before espousing the virtues of the things from home that I still hold dear: big sky, late afternoon thunderstorms that rattle the house and offer a thrilling, momentary reprieve from the summer heat, Tex-Mex, barbeque, and chicken fried steak, not necessarily in that order, the saying of please, thank you, and yes ma’am, football season, the wildflowers that spring up alongside the road, those days spent doing nothing besides drinking iced tea and sitting in the shade, which, in the middle of July, feels something like receiving the universe’s only tender mercy.

I’m not completely sentimental about where I grew up, however, and I also know that that big sky is now choked with the country’s worst pollution, the humid Texas heat is only being made more intolerable and dangerous in every respect by global warming, some of the same people who say please and thank you religiously also believe gays are going to hell (or that there is a hell, for that matter), places where large groups of people gather like football games are often the same places where drunk, hateful idiots feel emboldened enough to openly call someone a gook, spic, nigger, or fag, and there are parts of the state where you still get the feeling that people would like to kill you simply because you look different.

But I don’t want to think that is a significant portion of the population. I know–I’m in a certain amount of denial. But I’m already drowning in my own cynicism on a daily basis, this election has put me and everybody else in an Us vs. Them frame of mind, my parents live in Texas and they are adorable, and it’s too easy to blame certain parts of the country, like Texas, or the South, or the Middle, for all of America’s shameful, small-minded, stupid behavior.

So it was with great dismay that I learned this week that, according to a UT poll, 23% of Texas voters believe Obama is a Muslim. (It goes without saying that I, like so many other people, am first and foremost dumbfounded that “Muslim” has become a slur in this election, but so it has.) A Forbes writer spun this incredible number as less of a mark of ignorance than of the limited way in which polls can be interpreted.

There’s another possibility: McCain supporters using badly conceived polls as political weapons. If you ask people in a hardcore McCain state, a good number of them will says “Yes, Obama is a Muslim” whether they believe it or not, just to get the idea that Obama is a Muslim out there. All’s fair in war and politics, after all.

And I’m willing to believe that. No, amend that. I do believe it. I need to believe it. Because the alternative, that a quarter of Texas voters are actually that small-minded and stupid, hits far too close to home, to my home and how I want to think of it, and, more generally, how I want to think of our greater home, the country we live in.

Dudes– nothing gives me more retarded tingles than watching somebody get busted for being unprepared and/or sensationalist and/or poorly informed while on split-screen live TV. It’s fucking painful. PAINFUL. Remember Kevin James’s massive “appeasement” stumble on Hardball? Shouldn’t the imminent shame resulting from such incidents be enough to scare some studying into anybody with a booking agent? Why-why-WHY does this continue to happen?

Oh, and I’m talking to YOU, Michael Goldfarb (this is not our fellow HuffPo compatriot, by the way, but the on-leave editor of The Weekly Standard and McCain’s paid megaphone):

My gosh. Can somebody please tell these dorks to do their fuckin’ homework before they go on television? If one is the McCain Campaign National Spokesman, one should at least do that. Or is everybody taking lessons from the Palin School of Interview Bumbling?

Here is an excerpt of the statement McCain-Palin spokesperson Michael Goldfarb issued shortly following the story:

“In order to assemble this barrage of petty and personal attacks, the New York Times employed tactics that are obviously unprofessional and almost certainly unethical. This campaign has obtained a copy of an email sent by New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor to a 16-year-old girl and friend of Bridget McCain, the youngest of the McCain children. Ms. Kantor sought to dupe the unsuspecting minor by soliciting ‘advice’ on how best to approach the story, as if a top-flight investigative reporter at the New York Times would need the assistance of an underage girl in writing a hit piece.”

I think I’m not alone when I say that I’m sorta with the McCain camp on this one. I mean, how many times have you been approached by somebody who’s, like, a friend of a friend of a friend on Facebook, who seems normal and harmless in their profile picture with the soft focus, who acts like they want to be your friend and your friend alone and pretends that they’re interested in YOU and your “activities,” “interests,” and your “about me,” only to have them turn right around and flood your inbox, homepage, and non-existent and erronenously-named “FunSpace” with requests to join their pointless Blog Network or to buzz up their crap on the Huffington Post or to sign up for their massive Facebook group or their fucking Fan Page or their goddamn Cause for some buzzkill reason like preventing domestic violence or to attend the 800th voter event happening this week, before you say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH and you go to said person’s Facebook profile, your hand hovering over the “Remove from Friends” button at the bottom of the page, thinking “Dammit, I’m a person and not just an ass you can rape with your shameless, self-promoting cockwand,” wondering if that person would really ever notice if you de-friended them and then what, would an unbearably awkward conversation ensue if they did and are you just an abnormally intolerant person or is this person you want to Remove from Friends really insane as you’ve convinced yourself they are and why are you even thinking about this junior high-shit at all in your thirties when you could be spending your time finding a stronger Retinol product to combat the ever-deepening laugh lines (or smoker’s lines, whatever) on your face and finding ways to introduce more fiber into your red meat-heavy diet?

So, sure, getting bugged on Facebook by strangers is, in brief, annoying. But is it “almost certainly unethical”?

Bitch, please.

Read the full duping Facebook message Kantor sent to Bridget’s friend here. For the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics, click here.

The World Series started Wednesday, and since the Red Sox are out, I wasn’t planning on watching. Except, as with the Academy Awards, the Series has a hold over me that is hard to shake, no matter how much it blows (or how much I hate the Rays one or both of the teams). So this year, I thought I would watch it much like I do the Oscars (or Project Runway)–to see what people are wearing. I know, it sounds a little batshit. But if you’ve watched as much baseball as I have, you know that when you’re heart’s not in the game itself, you have to find something to keep your interest. Of course, when I started thinking about it, it occurred to me that there were some eerie parallels between the World Series and the presidential election, which I’m also aware sounds a little batshit. So bear with me here…and let’s play ball!

Mohawks versus Mullets

In the World Series hair department, the primary trend matchup is Mohawks versus Mullets. Toward the end of the regular season, many Tampa Bay Rays players–and their 54 year-old manager, Joe Maddon–gave themselves “The Rayhawk” to demonstrate team unity. While the Phillies’ don’t have uniform ‘dos, Game 1 starting pitcher and NLCS MVP, Cole Hamels, and outfielder Jayson Werth (pictured) share a hairstyle that borrows its name from another sport: “Hockey Hair.” The two prevailing styles are, by all appearances, totally different–punks versus pucks, Joe Strummer versus Joe the Plumber–yet they both would have you believe that the person wearing them is a rebel, a freethinker, a maverick, an agent of change, and an outsider to the Clean-Cut Establishment.

Man-Hugs and Chin-Pubes

With so much attention brought to specific voter groups this election, whether they be young, old, black, Latino, Asian-American, or your Jewish grandparents, there was perhaps no group more sought after than women voters. Wasn’t that why an unknown female governor from an obscure, underpopulated state that your “average American” has never been to was brought into the race? Baseball players in this year’s Series are also getting in touch with their feminine side, whether it’s hugging it out on the field after a win, or proudly wearing what most closely resembles a slightly overgrown bikini wax on their chins.

Flat versus Curled Brims

The flat hat brim is for the fake American who lives in the big city, an urban dweller too busy with their fake life to be hard-working, patriotic or pro-America, who feeds their family with peppery, bitter lettuces foraged from Whole Foods. The curled hat brim is for the real American who lives in a small town, in a wonderful little pocket of real America, who feeds their family through their real core values, like hunting, fishing, and getting real animal carcass-blood on their hands and clothes. The flat hat brim’s origin is the streets, hip-hop, pop culture, and cool; the curled hat brim’s is the country, country music, a culture of “actual responsibilities,” and true grit. The curled hat brim is bending under the weight of its profound realness, a burden that the flat hat brim, in all of its smart eloquence, will never understand. The curled hat brim says, “God Bless America,” and the flat hat brim, well, it occasionally “palls around” with terrorists…plural.

Swing State Batter Batter Batter, Swing State Batter

Phillies fans (L), Rays players rallying for Obama (R)

Perhaps the most enduring World Series trend that we may get a glimpse of this year is the fact that winning often hinges on just One Big Swing. One side can seem like they’re totally out of the game and then thwack!–victory is once again up for grabs. Both World Series teams also happen to be from two important swing states, Florida and Pennsylvania. Kinda puts a new spin on the idea of a state being “in play,” doesn’t it?

Not that America’s pastime has any bearing on, like, who our next American president will be. Or does it? The first World Series pitch has already been thrown out, and I’d rather watch the game, as much as my heart’s not in it this year, than talk any more about politics. So I’ll let you readers decide…Mullets in 5? Chin-Pubes in 7? Obama in 286?

Of COURSE I think that the very suggestion of “Paris for President” (as opposed to really delightful ideas/jokes, like Murs para Presidente or McCain 4 Prez) is abominable. It’s not even funny. NOT EVEN FUNNY.

That is, unless nummy model William Chan (see above, right) actually would be one of Paris’s Secret Service men. In which case, she could very well have my vote.

“It is permitted to be said, such things as, ‘Well you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.” Well the correct answer is that he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be President?”

There are things that Powell has done that I will never be happy about, but I will always be grateful he had the balls to finally stand up and say this.